A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Will Bush Fool Us Twice?

Today the Senate is expected to vote on changes to the FISA law. President Bush wants immunity for the telecoms because that will take the matter away from those pesky courts–which keep declaring his initiatives to be contrary to law. The Dems claim that we get sensible and desirable FISA rules in return for the telecom immunity deal. Just assume for a moment that that is true, what assurance do we have that such rules will not be bypassed with one of those fine print signing statements?

Early on in the administration, Cheney arranged it so that all legislation that was going to be headed toward the president’s desk to be signed would be routed through the vice president’s office, allowing David Addington to take part in the bill-vetting process. Normally signing statements would be crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel, the White House Counsel’s office, the Office of Management and Budget. The vice president’s office was added to that mix, and this became another vehicle for the expression of these very strong views of executive power, this very aggressive conception of what it is that is beyond Congress’ ability to regulate when it comes to the executive branch.

Recall that after Congress tried to write new laws concerning interrogation practices run amok, Bush seemed to relent, but then quietly inserted a signing statement that essentially said he would interpret this new law in a way that would be consistent with his power as command-in-chief of the armed forces, which seemed to reduce the new law to nothing but words on paper. Will Bush fool everyone again?